A Locrian Scale on Octave Mandolin

Play the A Locrian scale on Octave Mandolin with fretboard diagrams that map the pattern across the neck. The Locrian scale has 7 notes per octave and belongs to the modes family.

A is available as an open string on Octave Mandolin, and 3 of its 4 open strings are scale tones — G (the flat 7th), D (the 4th), A (the root). The E string sits outside the scale. Open, the strings cover G2 to E4.

The most dissonant, unstable mode — the tonic chord is diminished (b5), making a true Locrian tonal center rare. Used for color and passing harmony.

Heard in: Metal riffs, jazz (half-diminished ø7 chords in ii°7 – V – i), horror and tension film scores.

Octave Mandolin is strung in four courses of two, so each stopped note here sounds as two — which is why the shape rings thicker than the same grip on a single-strung instrument.

Each position shows the scale notes and their intervals from the root so you can connect the shape to its sound, hear it with audio playback, and practice it in any register. Movable patterns let you transpose the same fingering to other keys once it is learned.

Once a position is under your fingers, link the A Locrian scale to the chords it harmonizes and to progressions in the key of A to start improvising and writing with it. Working a scale alongside its chords is the fastest way to make it stick and to hear how it colors a progression.